The frustration of another game that could have...or should have been won by the Astros, but wasn't played on Cecil Cooper's face during his post game media session Friday night.
An almost weariness accompanied his words that the Astros had let the game get away. He wasn't referring to the two runs scored on Alberto Arias in the 8th that took an Astro lead and turned it into a Cardinal win. He was referring to that and a whole lot more. He was thinking of the first inning when Michael Bourn led off with a double and Miguel Tejada had a single but Carlos Lee lined out to left and Geoff Blum popped to first. If you are counting that's only two out. The other out had to be charged to Coop. For some reason he had Kazuo Matsui sacrifice Bourn to third after his opening double. Playing for one run in the first? And when the runner is already in scoring position. And when the meat of your order is coming up--as it always has a chance to do in the first inning? That was an eyebrow raiser. But the one run was better than the none the Astros scored in the second after a leadoff walk...in the third after having a runner to third with only one out...in 4th after a leadoff double and two walks...or even in the 9th when they had fallen behind 4-3 and had a lead off single.
The Astros did score one run in the fifth after they got a runner to third with one out. But it took a ground out to get him home. What followed was a single, hit batter and walk to load the bases again, but no more runs scored.
The ONLY offensive inning that was impressive was the 8th when the Astros broke a 2-2 tie. With two out and none on Ivan Rodriguez snapped an 0-18 nine strikeout stretch with a single up the middle. It was nice to get it, but he had struck out twice earlier with a total of four runners in scoring position. After Pudge's single, Chris Coste followed with another. The the Astros best pinch hitter this season, Matt Kata, came through again with a single that scored Pudge and gave the Astros a 4-3 lead. His heroics shouldn't have been necessary. The Astros should have had more runs earlier.
And that is why this club is not likely going to win a division title. They don't have the bats needed to score in large quantities or even modest quantities enough. The Cardinals do. The Cubs do. Probably the Brewers do.
Recently the collapse of the late Astro Russ Ortiz and the shakey ground Astro Mike Hampton have raised the fans' ire. Very much justified, but don't forget the hitters. A good number of good starts such as Brian Moehler's on Friday and Wandy Rodriguez' last outing in Chicago have been squandered due to poor offensive output.
Even with a healthy Lance Berkman this year's club does not have much power. Neither of the corner outfielders are big power hitters. Carlos Lee can reach 30 on a good year. Hunter Pence is not there yet. And at every other position except Lance's first base there are players who can only hit the long ball on rare occasions. The Cards, Cubs and Brewers can score runs in a hurry thanks to that long ball. The Astros need to string hits. That is not easy, nor something they have done very well.
Hopefully Roy Oswalt will be able to rejoin the rotation next Tuesday against the Giants. We see Wandy vs the Cards on Saturday and Bud Norris in his major league starting debut on Sunday. Best thing to do is just keep your fingers crossed.
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Greg, has anyone at Coop's press conference asked him point blank why the heck he's been sacrificing position players, two days in a row, with runners already on 2nd base? To me, that's simply bizarre. I'm not really a big critic of Coop, I'd just like to hear his point of view as to why he's been doing something which seems to be so ungrounded in reasonableness.
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